Grave Sites – Oscar Wilde

“And alien tears will fill for him
Pity’s long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.”

Grave Sites – Oscar Wilde – Bio

Oscar Wilde
Irish Writer and Poet
Born October 16, 1854 – Died November 30, 1900

Grave Sites – Oscar Wilde – Grave

Oscar Wilde is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery, the largest cemetery within the city of Paris.

Many famous individuals are interred there, including Jim Morrison.

Grave Sites – Oscar Wilde – Kisses

On the tomb of perhaps one of the greatest writers of pithy one-liners – or epigrams if we’re going to get technical – are hundreds of lipstick-stained kisses that wallpaper Oscar Wilde’s gravesite.

On any given day, you may see a tourist apply a fresh coat of cherry red lipstick, pucker up, and plant a long, steady, open mouthed kiss on the Irish poet and playwright’s headstone.

Along with a visit to Jim Morrison’s grave, kissing Oscar has become a tourist ritual at the Père Lachaise cemetery.

Grave Sites – Oscar Wilde – Epitaph

The epitaph on his grave, posted above, is a verse from The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

“The Ballad of Reading Gaol” is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile either in Berneval or in Dieppe, France, after his release from the prison, Reading Gaol, on or about May 19, 1897.

Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading and sentenced to two years’ hard labour in prison.

During his imprisonment, on Saturday 7 July 1896, a hanging took place. Charles Thomas Wooldridge had been a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards. He was convicted of cutting the throat of his wife, Laura Ellen.

Charles Thomas Wooldridge was only aged 30 when executed, and this had a profound effect on Wilde.